Archive for January, 2011

I don’t know which offends me more – Travis Corcoran making such a tasteless comment, Brian Clevinger freaking out about it and cutting off all business ties, or Clevinger’s ‘comedic’ conceptual manging of what anarchocapitalism means.

To make matters even worse, the police became involved, interpreting Corcoran’s online remark as a potential threat, confiscating his firearms, and beginning proceedings to possibly revoke his license.

While I would agree that threats against people’s lives need to be taken seriously, I really don’t see how Corcoran’s inanity constitutes a valid and credible threat.

So it’s been several days since the murders of six people in Tuscon, Arizona, and woundings of fourteen others, including a Congresswoman. This is of course terrible and tragic.

(Aside: why exactly do public figures feel the need to condemn things that no person in their right mind would be neutral on, much less approving? Are they really so desperate to find a parade and put themselves at the head of it? But I digress.)

There have been some few people who have gone further, and deplored the hostile and confrontational tone of the American political scene of late – implying, though (to the best of my knowledge) not explicitly stating that this was somehow a factor in the shooting.

At present, we have no idea what the motivation for the shooting was – the presumed shooter doesn’t seem to be interested in talking, and any talking he may have done isn’t being released to the public. But the murders of prominent public figures aren’t necessarily about making political statements, even when the people involved are known primarily in the political sphere.

And there is absolutely no reason to think that the scorn and bile which are freely flung in the halls of Congress have anything at all to do with this attack. Using the deaths and serious injuries of so many people as part of another mealy-mouthed call for “cooperation” amongst the bickering Servants of the People is both in extremely poor taste and obnoxiously banal.